Geophysicist Semion Katz is second refusenik on faculty Two of seven Soviet scientists offered appointments in 1983 are now at the University

Semion Katz, a renowned Soviet geophysicist and prominent refusenik, has begun a two-year appointment as a visiting professor of geological sciences at USC.

Katz thus becomes the fifth of seven Soviet refusenik researchers offered USC faculty appointments in 1983 to be allowed to leave the USSR. He is the second, with economist Victor Kipnis, to join the USC faculty; three other members of the so-called “USC Seven” accepted appointments elsewhere in the U.S.

Kips, who arrived at USC last year, came to know Katz after former Letters, Arts and Sciences dean Irwin C. Lieb and Michael Melnick, associate research professor in dentistry, travelled to Moscow in 1983 to make USC’s offer in person.

He says that Katz is unique among the group in that his odyssey toward greater Jewish identification instilled in him a devout observance of halachic, or religious law.

Katz chose to wear a knitted kippa, or skullcap, in public once he had decided, at the end of the '70s, to request an exit visa for himself and his family.

In Moscow, says Kipnis, one sports a kippa only at one’s peril, and Katz was subjected to pronounced hostility because of his insistence on expressing his Jewishness publicly.

“Before I met him for the first time,” Kipnis says, “‘he had already been beaten quite severely in the streets by KGB thugs.”

Though Katz was demoted at the Moscow research institute where he worked, he was not actually fired once he indicated his wish to leave the Soviet Union. Thus he averted an otherwise common fate among refuseniks, many of whom fear being expelled from Moscow on charges of “parasitism.” For those whose survival—or at the least their ability to remain under international scrutiny and ultimately gain permission to leave the Soviet Union — depends upon residing in the capital, expulsion from Moscow can be catastrophic. Outside of the Soviet capital, far from the eyes of the international media, the KGB can do what it wishes with refuseniks.

“His situation was quite unpleasant nonetheless,” Kipnis says. “His salary was cut, his independence lost, and his ability to choose a line of research he was interested in taken away.”

Moreover, Katz was harassed at

Semion Katz (left) and fellow refusenik Victor Kipnis stroll through campus this fall, shortly after Katz’s arrival from Moscow.

his place of work continuously, and his superiors were constantly on the watch for a way to fire him. “Relations at the institute were very bad,” Kipnis says. “You can’t leave your place of work for five min-

utes, you can’t chat with your colleagues—you can’t do anything at all except to pretend you're working. It creates a lot of tension.”

Yet those who know Katz say his resolve never wavered. One of these was Matt Chazanov, a former Los Angeles Times Moscow bureau correspondent who came to admire him.

“He and his wife, Vera, are warm and wonderful people,” he says. “When I met them in 1980, they had just applied for an exit permit; and until their request was refused, in 1981, they were in a sort of limbo. But it never seemed to faze them.”

Chazanov believes that Katz’s international prominence was a factor in favor of his ultimately receiving an exit permit. Once USC had proffered an appointment, the Soviet authorities may have been reluctant to risk Katz becoming a cause celebre.

This assumption was, in fact, behind USC’s decision to pursue these

faculty appointments.

“Back in 1983,” recalls William G. Spitzer, dean of LAS, “faculty here were very upset at stories promulgated about distinguished Soviet scientists who, for political reasons, were stripped of their degrees, fired from their appointments, restricted in their professional activities and sometimes even subjected to physical abuse.

“Aside from the moral outrage this engendered, there was a widespread realization here that these were outstanding scientists who could make valuable contributions to USC if only we could get them here.”

The late Mark Kac, mathematics professor and co-chairman of the New York-based Committee of Concerned Scientists, was instrumental in actually identifying the seven refusenik scientists ultimately offered positions. Other participants in this effort included Rabbi Laura Geller, director of USC's Hillel Jewish Center; engineering professor Solomon Golomb; Melnick; Lieb and Cedric Minkin, associate professor and chairman of basic science in the dental school.

Once the seven refuseniks had been identified, the group set about consulting the University’s various departments, asking if, in the event of openings, these were the kinds of people they would hire.

Letters offering positions were sent out by the College; to be sure that they were received, Lieb and Melnick flew to Moscow to hand-deliver some and transmit the others through members of the refusenik community.

Sie later arranged for the oneyear appointments then offered to be extended to two years, as he believed that people experiencing so profound an upheaval in their personal and professional circumstances would need as much time as possible to adjust and, in academic terms, to catch up to their respective fields.

Geller says that efforts to secure Katz and the others were helped as well by a letter-writing campaign on the part of faculty and students, and by the efforts of some politicians.

“Tt can’t be an accident that five of the seven have already left,” she says. “And once it is recognized that, organizationally, these efforts have made a difference, it becomes easier to keep working on behalf of the others remaining.”

Sheldon Teitelbaum